1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to prosthetic heart valves, and, more particularly, to a sutureless cuff for securing a prosthetic heart valve within a patient's heart.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is well known that several heart diseases may result in a variety of disorders of the cardiac valves. For example, rheumatic fever may cause the shrinking of valve orifices. The resulting defects in heart valves hinder the normal operation of the heart. For example, defective closing of one of the valves, referred to as valvular insufficiency, may result in the accumulation of blood in the heart or regurgitation of blood past the defective valve.
To overcome these and other types of problems associated with defective heart valves, it is often necessary to completely replace the defective heart valve with a mechanical heart valve. Mechanical heart valves may come in a variety of styles and configurations. For example, a heart valve may include an annular valve body and a knit fabric sewing or suture cuff coupled to the valve body. Illustrative valves of this type are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,397,346 entitled "Prosthetic Heart Valve With Sewing Ring" and U.S. Pat. No. 5,397,348 entitled "Mechanical Heart Valve With Compressible Stiffening Ring," both of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety. In these type of mechanical heart valves, the suture cuff is sewn in place on the patient's heart tissue. Over time, the patient's heart tissue grows into the fabric to permanently seal the mechanical heart valve against leakage.
In general, heart valve replacement surgery is expensive and requires a highly-skilled team of doctors and support staff. During heart valve replacement surgery, the patient is maintained on a heart/lung bypass machine. While this procedure has worked very well, the longer the patient is on the heart/lung bypass machine, the greater the risk to the patient. It is desirable that the heart valve replacement be accomplished as quickly as possible. However, with the above-described heart valves, sewing the suture cuff to the patient's heart is time-consuming and tedious, further increasing the time that the patient is on the heart/lung bypass machine.
The present invention is directed to overcoming, or at least reducing the effects of, one or more of the problems set forth above.